


Mirror Mirror

by ConstellationStation



Category: RWBY
Genre: Gen, Sad Weiss hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 11:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20257366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstellationStation/pseuds/ConstellationStation
Summary: Little Weiss learns to keep herself company.





	Mirror Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> v7 is gonna have some Schneebling Feels(tm) so I'm just putting this here in the meantime

Weiss drags the blankets off her bed and into the floor. Her pillows had been the first to go, and they lay piled in between couch cushions near the window. She brings her blankets over to the pile, hanging one end of it on the window’s handle, arranging the hanging ends so it fell in a curtain around the pile. Pushing her ottoman with her whole body, she moves it towards the makeshift tent, draping a part of the blanket on the ottoman, so it formed an entrance of sorts.

She steps back and appraises her work. 

The blanket looked like it could slip off the handle at any moment. What she initially thought was a cozy blanket fort actually looked small and cramped when she thinks about her intended visitors. This was unacceptable! 

A quick glance at the clock, however, told her that she doesn’t have the time to fix it. Winter will help her fix it, she thinks. Her sister is much taller than her and probably knows a thing or two about building a respectable pillow fort.

It’s been far too long, in Weiss’s opinion, since she’d seen her older sister. Winter was learning how to be a huntress, no, a specialist, so she had to go to a military school. Weiss didn’t completely understand why she had to live there as well (it couldn’t have been that far, besides the trains and airships in Atlas are fast) but Winter assured her in her letters it was better that she did. 

Weiss picks up her sister’s most recent letter from her desk and rereads it. Confident that she got the date and time right, she folds it, making sure that the edges are lined up neatly, and slips it into her dress pocket. She then leaves her room to look for her brother.

Whitley’s bedroom isn’t all that far from hers, just down the hall, actually, but Weiss was just so excited she can’t help but run. Her father would probably yell at her if he saw her (or her room) but he wasn’t home right now and her mother never really minded what she does. 

She isn’t able to fully stop when she reaches her brother’s room and ends up slamming into the door. Unhurt, she doesn’t bother picking herself up from where she’s pressed against the door.

“Whitley!” She pounds her fist against the wood, “Whitley, let’s go, we’re gonna be late!”

A muffled “I’m coming” and the sound of footsteps tells Weiss to step away from the door before it opens. Her younger brother stares at her, confused.

“How are we late? I thought Winter was coming to us?”

“We have to be there to greet her, obviously,” Weiss says, pronouncing the last word with care.

Whitley looks dubious, but he takes her hand and they hurry over to the foyer. 

Weiss doesn’t quite run, since her brother can’t keep up when she does that, but they are moving too fast to be considered walking. Whitley would occasionally stumble and she would slow down to look back at him and urge him on. They pass by Klein, who greets them warmly with twinkling brown eyes but asks them to be careful.

They finally reach the foyer and they take a seat at the base of the grand staircase. Then they wait.

And wait.

Whitley looks around for a clock, but there are none in the room. “What time is Winter supposed to be here?”

“Soon,” Weiss promises. She takes out the letter from her pocket and shows it to her brother. “She said she’ll be here today after school. Her class ends at four and when I looked at the clock in my room it was almost four.”

Whitley squints at the paper. Weiss hands it to him so he could get a better look. He was only five, so she could understand if he had a hard time reading Winter’s grown up handwriting. Even Weiss takes a while to decipher her older sister’s neat, loopy script.

Eventually, Whitley nods and returns the letter. “So she’ll be here soon?”

“Yes! Any moment now,” she exclaims, arms sweeping towards the entrance of their home, “Winter’s going to walk through those doors!”

And so they wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Weiss is starting to get antsy. She tugs at her sleeves, folding and unfolding the letter in her pocket, and glances hopefully at the doors. Whitley’s impatience manifests in a more reserved fashion. His eyes glaze over, and he leans on his sister as he nearly dozes. Weiss stills as she tries not to disturb him, but the anxiety claws at her from within.

They keep waiting.

The sound of footsteps rouses them, but it doesn’t come from the entrance. Klein strides towards them with a scroll in his hand.

“Ah, children…” he trails off and Weiss knows immediately he has bad news. “Winter told me to inform you that she won’t be able to come home this weekend.”

Whitley stands up so abruptly Weiss is knocked off balance, “Why not?!”

“But she promised!” Weiss adds, digging in her pockets for evidence.

“And she is very sorry to break that promise, believe me,” Klein says, pink eyes downcast. “However, she promises she’ll be sending more letters over the weekend. She knows they won’t make up for her absence, but it’s the most she can do at the moment.”

“The most she can do is to be here!” Whitley all but screams. “We just wasted our time waiting for her and she doesn’t even show up!” His little voice rises in pitch as he talks and he is breathing heavily by the time he’s finished. Scrubbing his hands over his eyes, he stomps his way back to his room.

“Whitely!,” Weiss calls after him, but he doesn’t even turn around, “come back!”

She turns to Klein, “can you call Winter on your scroll?”

“I’m sorry, Snowflake,” he sighs heavily, “but I’m afraid Winter is… a bit busy right now. She’ll send letters when she’s ready.”

At Weiss’s dejected expression, he quickly tries to make up for it, “But, I’ll tell her you want to talk to her then I’ll let you know when she calls, okay?”

Weiss sniffles, she didn’t even realize she’d started crying, “okay.”

“Now come on, Snowflake, let’s go back to your room.” Klein holds his hand out to her and she takes it. 

They walk in silence for a moment.

“Do you think Whitley’s mad?” Weiss asks softly.

“He’s just a little upset, dear,” Klein responds. “Give him some time to calm down, and then you can play together afterward. I’ll even bake some cookies for you two.”

“Will you play with us,too?” She still needed an adult to help her with her blanket fort.

Just then, Klein’s scroll chimes. 

“Is that Winter?” Weiss asks eagerly, grabbing on to Klein’s arm as he checks on his scroll to peer at the screen.

She barely gets a glimpse of the text message before Klein sighs and stuffs the scroll back in his pocket.

“It’s your father,” he explains, “he’s asking me to run an errand.”

“So you can’t play with us?” Weiss doesn’t like how her voice wavers. Her throat feels tight and tears gather at the corners of her vision.

“I’ll catch up with your cookies later, but you’ll have to start without me.” His expression is apologetic so Weiss tries her best to hide her disappointment.

They reach her bedroom and Klein opens the door for her. “Oh dear,” he says as he sees what she’s done with the place.

Weiss’s disappointment increases when she sees that the blanket had fallen off of her sad little fort.

“It’s supposed to be a pillow fort,” she whimpers, picking up the blanket, “I saw one on TV and I thought it would be fun to play in with Winter and Whitley…”

Klein wipes the tears off her cheeks and gently takes the blanket from her. “Dry your eyes, Snowflake,” he says, hanging the blanket more securely on the window, “there’s still time yet for that to happen. You and Whitley can play all you want later, then you can tell Winter about it when she comes home to join you.”

Weiss watches in silence occasionally interrupted by sniffles as Klein fixes her fort. When he’s done, he crouches by the entrance and gestures for her to go inside.

“Why don’t you test it out before your siblings go inside?”

“Maybe later,” she says, forlorn, “I have no one to play with.” She feels near to tears again despite her best efforts to stop.

Klein’s scroll chimes again, but he ignores it in favor of more important matters.

“Well that won’t do,” Klein says, putting a hand on her shoulder, “there must be something here… Aha!”

“What is it?”

“You do have a playmate! Right here in this very room.” he says, yellow eyes beaming.

Weiss doubts he is referring to himself if his scroll’s incessant chiming is anything to go by. Father didn’t like to be kept waiting. “Who?”

Klein steers her by the shoulders to one of the walls of her room. “Right here!” he exclaims, hand sweeping towards her mirror.

Weiss blinks owlishly at her reflection. “Myself?”

“Yes,” he says, patting her head, “I wish I could always spend time with you, and I’m sure your siblings feel the same, but there are going to be times when we just won’t be able to do that.” Klein meets her gaze through the mirror, “but you’ll always have yourself, and know that we’re all wishing you the best from wherever we are. Okay?”

Weiss steps forward and presses her palms against the cold surface. “Okay.”

Klein ruffles her hair, “alright then. I promise to be back later with cookies, have some fun in the meantime.”

Weiss bids him goodbye, watching him leave through the mirror. She turns her gaze back to the reflection. 

She doesn’t do anything.

“Do you want to try the pillow fort with me?” she asks, smiling at her reflection.

She smiles back.

Delighted, she skips over to her fort, slipping inside the blanket entrance and settling into the pillows within. She peeks outside to the mirror only to find that it’s at the wrong angle to see herself in.

“Don’t you want to play?” she says, approaching the mirror again. It is embedded in the wall and she won’t be able to turn it around to face her fort.

“You’re boring,” her reflection pouts at her, “and a terrible playmate!”

Weiss glares back, but her reflection has nothing more to say.

She sighs, placing a hand on the mirror. Her fingertips press against her reflection’s, cold and unalive. “But you’re all I have right now so we have to think of something…”

She doubts she’d be able to strike an engaging conversation with herself, and there wasn’t much she could do with her reflection.

“Do you want to sing with me?” she asks, “Winter said I have a nice voice.”

Her reflection nods in encouragement and opens her mouth.

“Mirror, tell me something..”

The glass is cold against her hands, and with her face so close to the mirror, there was little else she could see but herself.

“Tell me who’s the loneliest of all…”

**Author's Note:**

> I considered rewatching v4 just to get a grasp of what Weiss's room looks like but then I decided that they're rich and have a lot of time so it could have been renovated between then and the time the show starts. Alternatively, this could be an au where everything is the same except the Schnee manor looks like that ;P
> 
> Anyway, Winter just had a shouting match with her dad so she doesn't want to go home and feels too emotionally compromised to talk to anyone but Klein.


End file.
